Justin Bieber: Never Say Never Director/Fan Cut Coming This Friday

Just when you thought it was safe to return to your local theater, Bieber Fever is once again on the rise. What they're calling the "Director's Fan Cut" of Justin Bieber: Never Say Never will hit theaters for an exclusive one-week engagement on Friday, including 40 minutes of new footage. The new cut will run 115 minutes, just 10 minutes longer than the original, which means the new version will also lose about 30 minutes of what was in the original.

Director Jon M. Chu, whose career prospects have exploded thanks to Never Say Never's success, explained in the press release that he's including both footage from the cutting room floor and new stuff he shot during the film's promotional tour.

“I realized I had an embarrassment of riches when I was I in the cutting room. This cut allows me to retain some of the best scenes from the original movie, while incorporating previously unseen footage and new material I shot during our extensive promotional tour on behalf of the movie. Justin’s dedication to his fan base is unwavering and I was inspired as a filmmaker to attempt to provide them a unique experience that showed even more of his world.”

Justin Bieber: Never Say Never opened to $30 million its opening weekend, and so far has earned over $52 million worldwide. The new cut is most definitely a way to goose sales for the film, which dropped more than 50% in its second weekend, a pretty typical result for 3D concert films that rely heavily on fervent fanbases to show up opening weekend. Even if they don't all show up again this weekend, Paramount will have made a nice profit on the film, and recutting it for the second go-round can't have cost them too much. It's smart marketing to an eager fanbase-- exactly the kind of strategy that made Bieber a superstar to begin with. Well done, everyone.